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A creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals socializing in the identical inn, attending the identical church and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display ID, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were asked early on about how much wall they wished to keep. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained together with a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k came to see each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to